Upon the deposit of bank notes at automatic tellers and/or deposit devices, the deposited bank notes are checked for their properties, such as authenticity, state, type of bank note, i.e. currency and denomination, etc. Depending on the result of the check, the bank notes can be for example accepted, sorted, stored, etc. The accepted bank notes are stored using cassettes in which the bank notes are kept in order to be transported for example to a bank for accounting.
In the handling of the cassettes, however, a multiplicity of problems can arise resulting, on the one hand, from the fact that it should always be ensured as far as possible that the automatic tellers and/or the deposit devices are operable at all times. Such problems can arise for example when the maximum capacity of the cassettes is reached, because no further bank notes can then be deposited. On the other hand, it should be ensured in particular during transport that the bank notes contained in the cassettes cannot be tampered with or stolen, or that such tampering can be discovered.
Known solutions to these problems cannot completely compensate the arising disadvantages, since they either only partly solve the problems or are very elaborate to realize. For example, it has been proposed that a signal for replacing cassettes be produced after they have reached their maximum capacity. In this case, however, the automatic teller is still out of service until the time when the full cassette has been replaced by an empty one. For securing the transport of cassettes filled with bank notes, it has been proposed to provide substances in the cassette which are distributed over the bank notes located in the cassette to mark them in case tampering or theft occurs.
It is the problem of the present invention to specify a method for handling cassettes for bank notes, for automatic tellers and/or deposit devices, which allows uninterrupted operation of the automatic tellers and/or deposit devices. In a further aspect, it should be ensured that cassettes removed from the automatic tellers and/or deposit devices, or the bank notes contained therein, are secured against tampering.
The inventive method for handling cassettes for bank notes, for automatic tellers and/or deposit devices, provides for
determining the filling level of the cassette or cassettes,
comparing the determined filling level of each cassette with at least one threshold value lower than a maximum capacity of the particular cassette,
if the comparison yields an excess, producing a signal indicating the exceeding of the threshold value, and
causing replacement of the cassette for which the signal indicating the exceeding of the threshold value was produced.
The inventive method has in particular the advantage that the timely replacement of the cassettes, i.e. as a rule before the maximum capacity is reached, makes it possible to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the automatic tellers and/or deposit devices. For this purpose, a signal requesting replacement of the cassettes is produced in such good time that the replacement can be carried out as a rule before the maximum capacity is reached. It has proved especially advantageous to specify flexibly the moment when the signal for replacement is produced and to determine it in dependence on the time required for replacement and/or the number of bank notes usually accepted by the automatic teller and/or the deposit device per unit time.
In the further aspect, it is provided for storing information about bank notes contained in the cassette as cassette data, in a special, non-evaluable data format, in a nonvolatile memory associated with the cassette.
Securing the information about the bank notes contained in the cassettes makes it possible to ensure that any tampering with the bank notes or theft of bank notes contained in the cassettes can be recognized at any time. This cannot be prevented by changing the information about the bank notes stored in the nonvolatile memory of the cassettes in accordance with the tampering or theft.